Helping you to stay safe

Helping you to stay safe

We live in an increasingly online world where almost any financial transaction you need to make – whether that is to buy groceries, pay household bills or buy Christmas presents, these transactions can all be done from the comfort of your own home.

With identity theft posing a threat, keeping financial data private requires that consumers be proactive in approaching online security. We have compiled a number of tips to help you keep your finances safe:

Don’t reuse passwords: it’s good practice to use a different password for every account you access online.

Use a ‘£’ sign in passwords where you can: most European keyboards do not have a £ sign so this limits the chances of someone guessing your password.

Where possible use optional security questions for each account: use questions that don’t have answers available by public record. For example, “what city were you born in?” or “what is your father’s middle name?”.

Don’t put private information on public computers: if you’re away from home, make sure you do not save any private information (email addresses, passwords etc) on a public computer.

Do not give out private information (such as bank details or passwords), reply to text messages, download attachments or click on any links in emails if you’re not sure they’re genuine.

If you receive a suspicious email delete it immediately and do not open any attachments or click any links.

As with the online world, telephone fraud is becoming increasingly common. Here are some tips to help protect you:

A bank or payment card company will never ask you to transfer money out of your account to another that you do not recognise – so hang up immediately.

If you do not think that the call may be authentic and you choose to call your bank or card issuer, call the number on your bank statement or on the back of your card, and NOT a number given to you by the caller or the number you were called from.

Never provide personal or financial information to a caller, but call back on a number you know to be genuine. Please note that this list is not exhaustive, but gives some pointers to help you stay safe

If you receive a suspicious telephone call, contact your telephone provider (make sure you fully hang up the phone before making the telephone call) to let them know.